Why not spend a couple of hours with really unpleasant people? No? Well, I did so you don’t have to do so. Yes, intrepid movie pal Peg and I headed over to the Spectrum, fortified by a good lunch at the Fountain. As many of you know, I am a happy user of “The Facebook”…
Category: New Media
BitchBuzz: The Whiteboard Meme
My latest column on this week’s internet wildfire: Why the “White Board Girl” Meme Was So Popular By K.A. Laity The link that launched a million laughs has, perhaps predictably, been exposed as a hoax. The Gawker gleefully “exposed” the pranksters and a lot of #HOPA tweets were predictably misogynist in their tone as they…
eBooks: No longer the future
They’re the PRESENT! Yeah, Mashable has a story about how Kindle books are outselling hardcovers on Amazon and the L. A. Times has a long article on how ebooks are transforming the reading experience. Even most authors are prepared for the need to push the various electronic editions, but we’re still figuring out the best…
My Students: Full of Awesome
Two grad students who are doing independent studies with me also made music videos to go with their projects. I don’t think I can link to Kira’s video on Facebook (a mash-up of Tipping the Velvet and the Brandi Carlile song “I Was Made for You”), but I can link to Caitlin’s video for Lady…
BitchBuzz: The Worth of Women’s Words
My latest column for BitchBuzz was inspired by a random confluence of things — or, if you don’t believe in coincidence, a surprising (to me) confluence of wyrd. Love the image from the Gagosian exhibit on J.G. Ballard’s Crash, Douglas Gordon‘s Self-Portrait of You and Me (Jayne Mansfield) from 2007: Somehow a weird collision of…
New Media and My Life
The big announcement today was Apple’s new tablet computer. I suspect there were no women on the design team, or else it wouldn’t have ended up with the name iPad (on a related note, a trending topic on Twitter: iTampon). I was teaching at the time of the announcement and joked with my students about…
BitchBuzz: Hoax News
My latest BitchBuzz column manages to slip in a Fast Show reference before turning to its topic of the lack of critical reading skills by seemingly everyone on the ‘net. Part of the phenomenon comes from the universal lack of time and also the ease of forwarding what looks like an interesting/amusing/incendiary headline without actually…
BitchBuzz: Social Media Disenchantment
My latest column for BitchBuzz, about the disenchantment toward social media by some people who had hoped it would make them rich. I’m particularly pleased that Cate used the picture from All About Eve, that I suggested. Love that film! There’s a great passage in Marilyn French’s The Women’s Room where her character Val captures…
Social Media Breakfast–Tech Valley
Yesterday morning, much too early, I headed downtown to the Capital Rep Theatre, host of that morning’s Social Media Breakfast for the Tech Valley region. The lovely picture is from the CapRep stage: they’re currently deep into Shear Madness. Great set, eh? The featured speaker was Justin R. Levy, a PR/social media maven, who live-tweeted…
BitchBuzz: Repetition
My latest piece for BitchBuzz is all about repetition, i.e. our addiction to sequelitis. I manage to name check the Fall, Clive Barker and Doug Bradley. Pretty good record for this vicinity: “This is the three Rs, the three Rs,” Mark E. Smith sang back in the late seventies, “Repetition, repetition, repetition.” I think that’s…
K. A. Laity 